This week Barry Phillips takes a close look at GenAI usage in the workplace and the stats that indicate it has really taken root .

Transcript:

Hello Humans!

And welcome to the weekly podcast that aims to cover an important AI issue relevant to HR in around five minutes.
“AI isn’t coming. It is here and it is diffusing rapidly.”

That’s the opening message of the AI report from the Working in Ireland Survey 2025, published last week.

Researchers interviewed 3,040 workers in the Republic and 1,260 in Northern Ireland, between 15 May and 28 August 2025. The findings therefore are already over a year old, but still useful if interpreted with caution.

Generative AI adoption stands at 29.3% in the Republic and 26.1% in Northern Ireland, above the European averages cited in the report.

But adoption varies sharply by occupation, gender, earnings and firm size.

In the Republic, it rises from 8.5% among workers with net annual earnings under €15,000 to 73.8% among those earning €110,000 or more. Professional and managerial roles approach 50%, compared with roughly 3% to 9% among process and plant operatives and skilled trades.

The private sector leads the public sector in both jurisdictions: 34% against 25.6% in the Republic, and 30.2% against 21% in Northern Ireland.

Not-for-profit and NGO workers record 28.9% and 37.8% respectively, although that Northern Ireland figure comes from just 37 respondents.

Most users rely on one tool. Around 45% use GenAI every day or most days, but the majority use it for half an hour or less daily.

Yet only 52.2% of employees in the Republic, and 36.5% in Northern Ireland, report having an official workplace policy or guidelines. This is scary reading.

And which tools were workers using?

ChatGPT led at 74.8% in the Republic and 75.8% in Northern Ireland. Microsoft Copilot recorded 41.1% and 44.4%; Claude, just 4.6% and 7.9%.

Those figures need particular caution. A year ago, ChatGPT was the go-to tool for most Legal Island staff. Today, Claude leads by 55% to 45%. That’s our experience, rather than a measure of the wider market.

Any public sector switch from Copilot to Claude is harder to measure if it happens without official approval. That’s the problem with “shadow AI”: we simply don’t know its scale.

Legal Island has tracked GenAI use among HR professionals across Ireland since August 2023. Back then, 42% of respondents had never used it, and only 20% used it often. By August this year, 58% reported using it regularly, with others stating they were becoming familiar with the technology.

So where does the time saved go?

Largely back to the employer it would seem. Most workers who save time put it into more complex tasks or routine work, rather than rest, personal matters or leisure. Saving time doesn’t necessarily mean getting time off.

On the AI calendar, research published more than a year after collection can feel ancient. But this report provides substantial evidence that AI has taken root in the workplace.

My takeaway? AI is here to stay, and keeping up can feel like speeding up just to stand still.

The data may be a bit dated, but that sense of overwhelm feels very current.